But Sophie shook her head determinedly. ‘If I stay here I’ll make things how they were again, and then he’ll come back.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I just mean we were happy before. He’ll come and see me, I know he will. It’ll be different then.’
William realised that she didn’t know about Christopher’s plan to go away. ‘They’re leaving,’ he said, hating having to break the news. ‘Both of them. They’re going to France in a few days.’
She stared at him. ‘How do you know?’
‘They told me. That’s when I left.’
He could see she was shocked, and he offered to stay with her, but she shook her head.
‘I’ll be alright.’
‘I’ll come and see you before I go to the trials. Think about what I said.’
She promised she would, but he thought her mind was elsewhere. After he had left the flat he threw his cigarette down and ground it viciously beneath his heel. He thought if he could stop himself from being in love by an act of willpower he would do it. To love somebody meant entrusting a part of your very soul to them. You became as vulnerable and exposed as an infant. But it seemed to William that the only reward anybody could expect was a kind of torture. He found himself going over every memory he had of the time he’d spent with Elizabeth. He’d been a fool. She had used him and told him she loved him, but it wasn’t true. He felt as if his insides were being torn from his body. The sense of loss and betrayal he experienced was a visceral, physical pain far worse than anything he could imagine. What was the point of loving anybody when it ended like this? Love was a tangled web of emotions that brought misery instead of happiness. Look at what love had done to Sophie.
He clenched his fist tightly. There was a brick wall beside him and he would have hit it, preferring the agony of broken, bloodied knuckles to what he felt. But he glimpsed a figure standing in the shadows and was shocked to see that it was Arthur. His eyes were dark and wild, his appearance dishevelled. William crossed the street towards him, but Arthur turned and began to walk quickly away.
‘Wait! Come back!’ William called out, but it was no good. He supposed he could have chased him and caught up, but what was the point? Arthur was another one for whom love had brought only misery.
CHAPTER 19
Two days after he saw Sophie, William returned to Pitsford House. Christopher was getting ready to leave for the station, though to William’s relief Elizabeth was nowhere in sight.
‘Look, old man, this has all turned out badly and I feel terrible about it,’ Christopher said. ‘I wish you’d reconsider about coming down to France after the trials.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ William said tightly, hardly able to believe that Christopher would suggest it.
‘If it’s because of Liz, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick there, you know.’
‘Have I?’
‘Liz and I are friends. We’ve been friends for a long time.’
He believes it, William thought, though even if for Christopher it was true, he must realise that Elizabeth’s feelings were not so straight forward.
‘Well, I ought to be off,’ Christopher said. He offered his hand. ‘Good luck with the trials, and I hope that we can be friends again one day.’
William ignored his outstretched hand. ‘I’ll let you know about the trials.’
‘Yes, alright.’ Christopher said, appearing saddened that the olive branch he was extending had been rejected. ‘Morton’s got the address where we’ll be staying.’
‘If we win the contract we’ll need to sort out what we’re going to do.’
‘Of course. I’ll be happy to go along with whatever you suggest.’ As he climbed into his car, Christopher hesitated. ‘If you see Sophie, will you tell her something for me? Tell her that… tell her that I’m truly sorry.’
It was, William thought, the only thing he’d said that sounded completely sincere, but as far as he was concerned it made Christopher’s actions all the more incomprehensible.
After Christopher had gone, William went to find Morton to tell him that if it was alright he would stay a final night in the house and leave in the morning. He planned to take the plane to Farnborough and find a cheap room to rent until the trials began the following week.
‘Very good, sir,’ Morton said. ‘Though Mister Horsham left instructions that I should tell you that you are welcome to stay as long as you like.’
‘Thanks. But it’ll just be the one night.’
That evening William ate alone in the dining room, waited on by a footman who was overseen by Morton. William wore one of Christopher’s suits for the occasion, and asked for a decent bottle of wine from the cellar, which Morton brought without a murmur. William didn’t know why he hadn’t simply asked for something on a tray to be brought to the drawing room, but he supposed it was an ironic gesture. He’d thought that one day he wanted all of this; a house like Pitsford with its estates and servants, but he realised now that if he became successful he would prefer to live in far more modest surrounds. It was perhaps a farewell gesture as much as anything, he thought. A farewell to dreams of an England that he didn’t belong to.
After dinner he got slightly drunk, and when he went to bed he collapsed without getting undressed.
He was woken by urgent knocking at his door, and was confused to find that it was still dark. When he opened it he found Morton there looking as if he’d just climbed from his bed. ‘What is it?’
‘A young lady is on the telephone, sir. She insists on speaking to you, though I told her you had retired.’
‘A young lady?’ He thought it must be Elizabeth, and despite everything, foolish hope sprung in his heart, but as he went downstairs he realised that it couldn’t be her because Morton knew her and would have told him.
‘Hello?’ he said when he picked up the phone.
‘William, I need you to come.’
He recognised Sophie’s voice immediately though she sounded very faint and her words were slurred as if she was drunk or half asleep. ‘Sophie, are you alright?’
‘Please. I need help.’
‘Sophie?’ her voice sounded even fainter and he became alarmed. ‘Tell me what’s wrong! Has something happened?’
She said something he didn’t catch, and then he heard a sound as if the phone had been dropped and the line went dead. He tapped for the operator and asked her to try the number again, but she told him she couldn’t get through. Within a few minutes he was driving as fast as he could towards Northampton.
When he arrived outside the flat there was a light on in the living room window. He went to the front door and rang the bell for the flat, but there was no reply. He tried the handle and found it unlocked. He ran up the stairs to find the flat door slightly ajar. Inside, the hallway was dark though he could see a light coming from the living room along the corridor.
‘Sophie?’ He stepped inside, and as he did he heard something from further within the flat. It was just a rustle of movement or perhaps a footstep. ‘Sophie, is that you?’ He listened but there was no response and as he advanced slowly along the corridor his heart was pounding. After Sophie’s strange call asking for help he was sure something had happened to her. He felt along the wall and found a light switch. The phone was lying on the floor beside a table, and as he bent to pick it up he noticed a rusty smudge on the wallpaper. When he touched it he found it was damp and the tip of his finger was stained red with blood.
There was more blood against the wall leading down the corridor and he pictured Sophie coming to the phone with one bloody hand out to support herself. Quickly he strode towards the living room door, already afraid of what he would find, but as he passed the corridor leading to the bedrooms he stopped. A light showed from one of the rooms and he thought he heard something. The living room was just in front of him and he went in and picked up a heavy silver candle holder from a table, before going back towards the bedrooms. There were more bloody marks
on the walls and on the carpet too.
At the door to the main bedroom he froze at the sight before him. Sophie lay on the bed wearing a nightgown drenched with blood. More blood streaked her legs and arms and her hands were completely red, as were the covers on the bed. She was very pale and perfectly still. Her eyes were closed and her arms were crossed across her breast. Beside her, Arthur was kneeling on the floor. He turned to look at William with bloodshot eyes, his face streaked with tears. His hands were covered in Sophie’s blood.
‘My God,’ William breathed. He stepped forward, lowering the candle holder. ‘What have you done?’ He reached for Sophie’s wrist to check for her pulse, but as he did Arthur grabbed his arm in a vice-like grip.
‘Don’t touch ‘er!’
His eyes blazed madly. For a moment William thought he would be attacked, but then Arthur looked back at Sophie’s lifeless body and tears rolled down his face. His shoulders shook with grief.
‘Arthur,’ William said after a few moments, this time more gently. ‘Tell me what happened? What did you do?’
But Arthur shook his head. ‘I didn’t do it. I loved ‘er. I would never hurt ‘er.’
‘Are you saying you found her like this? How did you get in?’
‘She let me in. I saw ‘er come back and I knew something was wrong, so I went to the door and she let me in. I found ‘er in the hall.’ He turned to look at William accusingly. ‘It were your friend who did this.’
‘What do you mean? Are you talking about Christopher? That’s ridiculous, he wouldn’t do something like this.’
‘He put ‘is bastard in ‘er and then he left ‘er! That’s why she tried to get rid of it. He might as well have cut ‘er open himself.’
William looked at Sophie’s body again, at the mass of blood that soaked through her nightgown around her groin. Horrified, he realised what Arthur meant.
‘You should have helped ‘er,’ Arthur said accusingly.
‘I came as quickly as I could. As soon as she phoned.’
‘You shouldn’t have let him leave ‘er like that, Will. Why did you do it to ‘er? My poor Sophie. My lovely Sophie.’
Arthur began murmuring her name and rocking back and forth on his heels. Tears poured from his eyes as he took one of her bloody hands and raised it to his lips to kiss her.
William realised that Arthur had lost his mind. The shock of finding Sophie bleeding and dying must have snapped whatever remained of his reason. At least he had been there when she died, William thought. She would have died knowing that she was with somebody who truly loved her and William was glad for that.
‘I’d better telephone the police,’ he said, though he didn’t think Arthur heard him. As he went back to the hall he saw that he’d managed to get blood on his hands and he went to the bathroom to wash it off. As he turned on the tap he looked at his reflection in the mirror and then at his bloody palms. Arthur had said he should have helped Sophie, as if he was partly to blame, and William wondered if it was true. He recalled what Sophie had said about making things the way they were again, and he guessed she’d been planning this when he saw her. Discovering that Christopher was leaving for France must have finally made up her mind.
After he’d washed his hands, William picked up the phone and asked the operator to put him through to the police. When he was connected, he told the officer he spoke to that there had been a death and gave the address. Afterwards he went back to Sophie’s room to try to get Arthur to come away. He thought the police would want to ask him questions, and he wanted to make sure they didn’t jump to the wrong conclusion as he had, but Arthur was nowhere to be seen. He went down to the street but there was no sign of him there either.
*****
Sophie was buried three days later. Though William had sent a telegram to the address in France that Christopher had given to Morton, no word had been received back, but still he thought he might turn up at the last moment. It was possible that they hadn’t arrived there yet, William thought. He couldn’t believe Christopher wouldn’t have been in touch otherwise.
William used up the last of his money to pay for Sophie’s funeral, and he did all he could to make sure everyone who knew her was informed. Her mother came, and one of her sisters, though they seemed more curious than anything else. He gathered from them that Sophie had had little to do with them for several years. There was a wreath and card from the solicitor’s office where Sophie had worked, but nobody came to the service. Arthur Hawkins appeared however, though he stood apart from the other mourners. William looked over once or twice and found Arthur staring at him, his expression indecipherable.
When it was over, William looked for Arthur again. He wanted to see if he was alright, and perhaps try to persuade him to see a doctor, but he had again slipped away and was nowhere to be found. That night William went to a hotel in the town and tried to get drunk, but the liquor didn’t seem to have any effect on him except that he became ever more morose. When he finally drove back to Pitsford House it was after midnight. He saw the orange glow in the night sky long before he realised what it was. By the time he got there men were running everywhere trying to douse the flames with buckets of water, their faces lit by the flames. He did what he could to help and eventually the fire wagon arrived, but by then it was far too late. The garage behind the house had been completely destroyed along with the biplane inside.
When everyone had finally gone, William sat alone waiting for the dawn. One of the gardeners had told him he saw somebody creeping around just before the fire was noticed. William wondered if it was Arthur who’d set the barn alight. As the light crept over the fields he noticed something in an oak tree not far from the house, and when he went to see what it was he found Arthur hanging from a branch, his face swollen and black.
With a leaden heart, William climbed up and cut him down then laid his body out on the damp grass.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 20
FRANCE APRIL 1917
A line of poplars along the banks of the river Lys marked the edge of the aerodrome where No. 28 squadron of the Royal Flying Corps was based. The officers were housed in a farmhouse and its surrounding outbuildings, while the other ranks lived in tents near the canvas hangars.
On a cold afternoon, Lieutenant William Reynolds climbed into the cockpit of an RE8 reconnaissance plane in front of Smale, his observer. A mechanic grasped the propeller and gave it a half turn to prime the carburettor.
‘Contact?’
‘Contact.’ William flicked the switch on and the engine fired and then exploded into life in a brief cloud of smoke. In another identical two-seater to his left, piloted by Pervis, with Thorne as the observer, the same procedure was followed. William opened the throttle and his plane bumped across the grass and lifted into the air.
There was very little wind. At five thousand feet, a grey mass of cloud threatening rain covered the landscape. The bombardment on the ground signalled that the offensive at Arras would begin shortly. The sound of the guns was continuous. Geysers of mud and dirt erupted around the German positions as the artillery shelled the enemy in preparation for the attack, though most of the shells were falling beyond the intended target.
When William was in position at two thousand feet, his observer, Smale, began to tap out instructions in Morse code, which were sent by wireless to the artillery. The artillery shortened their range, and on the ground the explosions crept closer to the German positions. At the same time the German anti-aircraft guns opened fire, and black clouds of smoke began to unfurl in the air. At first the gunners struggled to find the correct range, but gradually the explosions became closer and the plane was buffeted and rocked by turbulence.
As Smale continued to do his work, William scanned the sky all around. There were a dozen or more two-seaters working nearby. Pervis and Thorne were less than a quarter of a mile away and a lone DeHavilland scout was patrolling above, keeping a lookout for enemy machines, though his presence gave William little co
mfort. Apart from the DeHavilland being a hopelessly outdated design, the German scouts hardly every flew alone.
An explosion rocked the plane violently and shrapnel whizzed through the air. William took the plane down a few hundred feet and changed direction to put the gunners off. A hole had appeared in the starboard wings, and looking down he saw a group of German troops had come out of their dugouts where they’d been sheltering from the British barrage. One of them was aiming his rifle into the air to take another shot, though the plane was not their principle target. A reconnaissance party from the British lines were pinned down in no-mans land, and the Germans were setting up a pair of machine guns to catch them in a cross fire.
Turning in his seat, William gestured to Smale, who saw what was happening, and understanding William’s intention he put his radio set away and swivelled the Lewis gun on its mount so that he could aim it over the side of the plane. As William brought the plane around for a run along the enemy positions, the British soldiers looked up at them. There were five or six of them left alive, huddled in a shell hole. They must have crawled across no-mans land during the night to reconnoitre the enemy positions, but somehow had become trapped before they could get back. At least half of them had been killed already. All at once the German machine gun crew opened fire from their mound, and immediately one of the British soldiers threw up his arms and fell backwards into the crater. His companions slithered down with him until only their heads were above the water while the ground around them was torn to pieces by bullets.
With the throttle wide open, William pushed the two-seater into a shallow dive, and then levelled out to make a pass in front of the German lines. Smale took aim and the Lewis gun kicked and barked. As they climbed again William looked back. Smale had killed the machine gun crew, but almost immediately others came to take their place. Almost immediately, they too were suddenly spinning and falling and looking around, William saw that Pervis had followed his lead and was also attacking. The British soldiers took their chance and began to squirm and slide on their bellies from the shell hole back towards their own lines, though their progress was painfully slow.
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